


Basorexia

by barrelrider



Category: Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Dead uncle jokes, Fluff, Humor, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-31
Updated: 2013-01-31
Packaged: 2017-11-27 15:45:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,265
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/663724
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/barrelrider/pseuds/barrelrider
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Basorexia (n.): an overwhelming urge to kiss.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Basorexia

It was a bit like drowning.

Sherlock could understand that, at least. As a boy, he had nearly drowned in the ocean once whilst looking at a tide pool. High tide sneaked up on him and stole him out to sea, but thankfully, his manic, drunk uncle, who happened to be a champion swimmer in the 1960s, dove into the sea to save his nephew.

That same uncle died after being hit by a bus. He supposed that was what it felt like, too.

It happened when John smiled at him, or when he was particularly brilliant (or, more often the case, stimulated Sherlock’s brilliance with some quip or comment about something ridiculously simple Sherlock had overlooked), or when he was being witty and snarky to Mycroft, or when he insisted on being overly and unnecessarily protective, or when he did anything remotely John-ish, which, unfortunately for Sherlock, was everything he ever did.

Sherlock was utterly besotted with John and consumed with the need to show it.

He enjoyed thinking of ways to approach the delicate desire he had to just fucking  _kiss_  the shorter man. He could pin him to the wall, run a hand on his jaw, murmur his name deeply, and take him then and there. (No, no. Too rubbish-daytime-telly.) He could turn to John in the midst of battle, grab his face, kiss him, and whisper, “Be safe,” before dashing off. (He was sure that move was copyrighted almost word-for-word from some rubbish-made-for-telly movie.) Or, he could just scream, “Brilliant!”, kiss John deeply, and push him away and continue to deduce. (Which was not related at all to rubbish telly, but would earn him a punch in the face.)

Needless to say, his bountiful pool of ideas, which were taking up a whole closet and bleeding onto the carpet of his Mind Palace, were all _rubbish_.

He could ask for help from others, but Mycroft would mock him for pining after his doctor so helplessly; Molly would be uncomfortable with offering advice for him kissing anyone but her (and she, surely, had as many ideas as he did on how to kiss him); and Harriet would slap him on the shoulder, give him congratulations and a wink, and tell him to pin her brother down and mount him like a lion.

So, he brooded. And sulked. And grumbled. And groaned. And accepted tea Mrs. Hudson made him. And threw blankets. And was absolutely catatonic to the point where John - bloody, stupid John who was causing all his grief - used him as a laptop table.

It was when he had taken to hiding under his bed that John finally asked him what his problem was. And Sherlock, graceless and socially-inept, didn’t put on the filtre he used for John and John alone when he said, “I have had an overwhelming urge to kiss you for the last three weeks.”

He expected the bed to be thrown out the window and for John to kick him senseless, or for the doctor to scream, “WHAT?!” and tell him why that was very not good, or to react in any way other than how he did, which was by pausing for three seconds and asking: “Er, why?”

Sherlock blinked in his dark refuge. “Oh, I don’t know,” he replied in a sarcastic tone, “why do most people want to kiss others?”

“You’re not most people, so I don’t know why you’re asking,” John replied after another moment. He hadn’t run away yet. Good.

Sherlock snaked out from under his bed and towered over the doctor when he was standing up. “Look at my eyes, John,” he murmured, knowing they had to be black as night and lacking his normal ice. He judged by the way John gulped and licked his lips that he could spot it and was enticed. “My wrist,” he uttered, offering it to the other man, who took it and was surely counting the fast, pitter-patter beats under the pale flesh.

“Sherlock,” John breathed, looking up at him in disbelief. “You - “

“Yes,” Sherlock replied, and a smile melted his features. He felt light as air, relieved of all his suffering and the waters of attraction which had filled every pore of his body; free of the feeling of a double-decker ramming into him and dragging him under the back left wheel because he crossed the street whilst shite-faced drunk; free of the need to run and hide. John Watson was going to kiss him.

John Watson was sticking a thermometer in his mouth.

“You’re sick,” John sighed, shoving a stunned Sherlock onto the bed. “I figured your over-sulking meant as much, especially when I cleaned up that moss experiment and you didn’t say a thing.”

“You dith  _wha_?” Sherlock asked with a glare.

“Don’t talk with that in your mouth,” John replied.

Though Sherlock’s temperature read normal, John still insisted he lay in bed with a cool rag and some Ibuprofen in his system (which Sherlock was glad for, because his head utterly ached). He brought him in tea and asked Mrs. Hudson to make some soup, and Sherlock hesitantly took both, if only to please John and distract himself from the urge to jump out the window and find the nearest bus to fling himself in front of.

Of course John thought he was ill. Of course the notion of emotions and desire was inconceivable when it came to Sherlock Holmes. Of course he would be doomed to pine for John from afar, watching him run off with ill-fated dates until he would find the one who would successfully steal him away forever.

A kiss to his forehead awoke him from such thoughts. His eyes peeled open and the furrow in his brow vanished as he stared up at the smirking doctor, whose cheeks were tickled pink with amusement and attraction. “If you wanted to kiss me that bloody badly, all you had to do was ask,” John teased with a wink. He held Sherlock’s hand for a long moment, then rose from the edge of the bed and sashayed out of the room in a manner that Sherlock swore was flirtatious.

John Watson had kissed his forehead. John Watson’s eyes had been dilated. John Watson held his hand. John Watson had been swinging his hips in Sherlock’s face. John Watson had not had a heterosexual, midlife crisis in the midst of any of those movements.

Sherlock wiped off the disbelieving gawk he wore, threw off the duvet and the wet rag unceremoniously, and tailed after his friend, calling his name in a tone that was  _not_  desperate: “John!”

Approximately one minute and twenty seven seconds and one knocked-over lamp, a messed-up rug, and two crinkled shirts on two heaving chests later, Sherlock gazed down at John, whom he had pinned on the couch after slamming their mouths together in the hall and dragging them across the flat, and murmured against his lips, “Asking is over-rated,” before kissing him again, tender and sweet, and the two of them smiled.

(When Mycroft texted Sherlock to “be careful” with John and to not defile the furniture because it was in “bad taste,” John had to run into the loo to stop Sherlock from flushing his mobile.)

(A week later, Harry sent John an envelope filled with free condoms and coupons for lube. Sherlock thanked her for being financially-savvy. John said he wanted to find the nearest bus and jump in front of it. Sherlock laughed, kissed his temple, and told him he understood the feeling all too well - as did his late uncle.)

**Author's Note:**

> Written for a one-word prompt on Tumblr. Quite short, quite cute, and quite a display of my poor sense of humour involving drunken uncles.


End file.
